


malevolent

by orphan_account



Series: holy [2]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Aaron's a little bastard, Abandomment issues, Angst, But Mostly Hurt, Crisis of Faith, Drug Use, Drug Withdrawals, Existential Crisis, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Narcotics, Religion, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-06-30 06:15:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15745932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: i'm afraid that if i speak i'll start shouting





	1. fever dream

spencer wasn't high, but his reality seemed to present itself as someone else's fever dream. he wasn't high (of course he _wasn't_ \- _couldn't_ be- _needed_ to not be-) but he just needed to dull the edges. it was like life made more sense when someone was holding him under water; like how events make perfect sense in retrospect but are horribly tangled with a small portion of everything while unfolding. he almost hated himself for going back to the very substance that had almost destroyed him and the career he loved so much but that hate was trumped by apathy that seemed to seep into him as easily as the dilaudid did. he'd been doing so well, but that was why he'd done this. spencer had been doing too well and he would rather tear himself down to his foundation than build himself a castle on the unreliable stone that was a false sense of security.  
spencer sighed and looked at his hands until they started to go out of focus, another slight headrush giving him tranquility. he looked at his hands until he couldn't tell where they ended and the floor beneath him began, relishing the fact that his internal monologue had stopped. all there was now was silence.  
sat on the floor, he traced patterns onto the laminate and let the substance corrupting his blood take ownership of him. he'd only let aaron own him in the past year but he just needed to breathe and to forget, because even if he wasn't sure aaron ever thought of him as something other than a quick fuck, spencer still cared out him. if he didn't know better, he would say he loved the other man. he let himself be used, and now he was doing some using of his own.  
surely, a man who'd been through almost every possible walk of life, it seemed, wouldn't have the time or energy for another religious revelation.  
who died and left christianity in charge?  
_(jesus. jesus died and left christianity in charge.)_  
as much as he was grateful to his religion, it wouldn't fix him. he was stuggling with the very act of staying awake and alive and he couldn't help but resent the fact that almost nothing brought him joy anymore. it was almost like spencer's misery was by design.  
rationally, spencer knew that maybe someone would start to worry soon. he'd called in sick enough days in a row to warrant concern and honestly, he didn't have the best track record when it came to self destructive tendencies. he could almost hear the sirens from inside the walls of his skull and he wondered if his team could hear them too. the sirens were from the ambulance that would come to save him after the inevitable failure of his body, only to realise a coroner should have been called. it was only a hypothetical and that day wasn't here yet, but he could still feel the paramedics looming over his body, pronouncing him dead on arrival.  
spencer hummed, smiling at himself. he could so easily make that day the day.  
what was that psalm about strength and celebration? he didn't want to remember it but spencer knew he could if he bothered to try. psalms didn't feel revelent to his situation, though. he didn't deserve comfort and salvation. no, he was the book of revelations and the hellfire that came with it (he winced at the memory of that book even though it'd been years since he'd heard it fall from a  malevolent mouth).  
suddenly, spencer didn't want the edges to be dulled anymore. he needed a solid grip on reality because he'd remembered aaron. aaron had been released from hospital just before he'd shot up because there were text messages and voicemails on his phone that he'd glanced at. aaron hotchner was still a bloody mess in a suit and tie who'd taken over spencer's mind and who now was blowing up his phone with worries and fear that was only vaguely masked with threats to come over to spencer's apartment himself. aaron needn't threaten; spencer wanted to see him in the flesh to know he was alive and breathing. spencer went through the motions of making coffee and diluted it with cold water so he could drink it straight away. he downed another cup for good measure and just waited for the depressant in his system to be neutralised by the stimulant. tapping out a message addressed to the man he'd had the misfortune to love, spencer tucked his phone back into his pocket, filled a thermos mug with more coffee, and called a cab.  
-  
aaron was doing his best to not completely scare spencer away by smothering him via text but to be honest, even he could admit that he was probably failing. at this rate, spencer might never come to see him. heaven knows he didn't stop by once in the week and a half he was in hospital. supplied with the knowledge that spencer had found him bleeding half to death and that spencer had called half the emergency services in d.c. to aaron's apartment, he felt himself wither. he wasn't good at wearing his heart on his sleeve or even having a heart, at times, but he'd never wanted for the boy (he wasn't old enough to be much more than just a _boy_ ) to find him in the state he'd been in.  
aaron had refused help to scrub his blood out of the carpet and floor. for the first time since elle greenaway, he'd cleaned away remnants of physical and mental trauma, hoping for a catharsis that he knew would never grace him.  
a ring from the door bell sharply pulled aaron from his own head. the heart he'd doubted was in existence was now making itself known as he kicked into fight or flight. he looked through the peep hole in his door before promptly disabling the alarm. it was spencer. spencer had come to him. saving himself the ordeal of jumping for joy, aaron unlocked the door and simply held the other man without any words or greeting. spencer seemed to understand, setting his thermos down onto the small table in front of him and embracing aaron, glad to breathe him in after so many weeks.  
spencer meant to say _'i'm so fucking sorry i never came to see you and i hope to everything i believe in that you're okay'_  but it came out "how are you?"  
aaron meant to say ' _i love you to death and i missed you like i'd miss my own lungs'_ but it came out "hello," his voice thick with something that couldn't be described with words.  
both men pulled away while still holding each other. they looked into each other's eyes and saw seas that flowed right into each other but that were somehow still seperate. aaron replied that he was good, apart from the obvious. the other man closed the door behind him, deciding it was safe to assume that aaron wanted him to stay. a buzz came from the older man's back pocket, so he pulled out his phone to check if it was a case.  
_**spencer reid:** to stop you making good on that threat, i'm coming to you, senior g-man._  
"just got your text," aaron supplied, testing the waters to see if the other man was in a good enough mood to laugh at that or not.  
spencer simply smiled sadly and opened his mouth to talk before closing it, licking his lips, and finally making speech come out.  
"listen, i couldn't come to see you. i don't think i could have handled seeing you in that goddamn hospital bed after finding you like- like that," spencer confessed with an air of reverence, unwilling to ruin the moment while tripping over his words.  
"i understand," came the soft reply.  
"i knew you'd understand," spencer whispered, his voice cracking and his eyes wet with tears. in this light, aaron thought, spencer looked like a star, and he'd spend however long he'd have him just bathing in the light.  
spencer licked his lips and spoke again: "i had you in my prayers every day and every night, aaron. i never forgot about you."  
no reply to that statement could be found apart from aaron's broken, quiet sobs. thunder broke outside the window and it started to rain.  
how fitting.


	2. the city

_looming over him was a neon sign blinking rapidly. the rest of the world had faded to black, and all he could see was the light that was so bright it burned his eyes. the sign flickered so fast that he couldn't make out what it said. it simply came in and out of existence as it pleased, tormenting him with a concealed promise._

-  
spencer jerked awake with a sharp intake of breath before promptly closing his eyes again in frustration and quietly groaning. this was the third time he'd had that dream in a month but he'd never gotten to figure out what the sign said. at best, it was irritating. at worst, it was downright ominous. he slept in the guest room of aaron's house, as neither of them had wanted him to leave after the previous night's events. it still annoyed him how aaron hadn't thought to offer to sleep with spencer in the most innocent sense of the phrase. it was times like this that he was sure he was being used. with no children or even any known long term relationships, aaron hotchner was mostly alone in the world (but that didn't mean he had to be alone in his bed.)  
resigning himself to a night with little to no sleep, spencer plodded towards his lover's room, the hallways shrouded in darkness beyond what should have been possible. spencer thought that he wouldn't have been surprised if that flickering neon sign made an appearence right at the end of the hallway.   
shaking aaron awake gently as to not startle him, spencer awoke him and slipped into bed with him, feeling a shaky insecurity behind a sense of belonging. this, spencer realised, was the first time they'd shared a bed apart from when having sex.   
"dream again?" aaron asked groggily, one arm draping over his eyes. "babe, i know you wouldn't get me if it wasn't important. what is it?"  
spencer bit his lip while searching for the right words to say. he was still feeling a slight buzz from the last time he'd shot up, and that had given him the courage to speak to aaron. certain things needed to be spoken about and spencer needed help, even if he could only admit it if it was dark and his eyes were closed or if he was intoxicated. saying out loud that he needed help was like prayer- something only to be done when he was desperate and it was too dark outside to feel like the world was ending.   
"aaron," he began, "i just realised this dream started bothering me about a month ago." spencer took a few quick breaths, knowing that the man in bed next to him would listen even if he did nothing else.   
"yes?" aaron encouraged spencer. sometimes, spencer didn't talk unless promted but he also didn't talk unless he'd processed his thoughts by himself. getting the other man to admit he was struggling was like waltzing around a sinkhole.   
"uh- i- what else did i do about a month ago?" spencer asked. he knew the answer, of course, but hearing it out loud from someone else made it real.   
"spencer," aaron said sternly. he hadn't had a timeline for spencer's addiction, only that it began years ago, after tobias hankel. he'd started doing better and aaron didn't want to think the worst of him but the tentativeness at which spencer spoke alluded to a lapse of some sort.   
"i relapsed a month ago, aaron. i haven't had a day where i wasn't high in 28 days. i need help, baby," spencer explained while his hands shook, "drugs can make minds do strange things and this dream is... unsettling, and i want it to go away but i need help."  
aaron kept one arm over his face, shielding himself from the reality that his (what- boyfriend? lover? fuck buddy?) _friend_ was an addict. clenching and unclenching his jaw, aaron sat up in the bed, raising himself to spencer's height and properly looking at him.   
"spence, i need you to tell me where all the drugs are in your apartment. i want a list of all the locations. if i find a single vial that's not in any of the places you tell me, we're done. i know that you know where it all is," aaron said in a tone that was eerily both cold and caring.   
tough love. spencer could deal with that.   
the scratch of his pen against paper sounded infinitely loud in the silence of the apartment.   
_in the pantry inside a stale loaf of bread, in the liquor cabinet behind the beer, inside the empty milk bottle in the fridge, taped into an envelope in the third drawer down of the desk in my study, inside the mattress of my bed, in the linen closet under the pillow cases, in the medicine cabinet concealed inside a bottle of nyquil..._  
spencer hadn't realised just how many hiding places he'd had for this one vice of his. writing that list down was like spilling his guts out onto paper and giving it away. eventually, when the embarrassment of writing while aaron just watched was over, he flopped back down onto the bed and tried to come to terms with the fact that he wouldn't have an escape anymore. it was for the best. it was for the best for the best for the best.   
**emily "dickhead" prentiss:** _aaron's pissed. he just called me, by the way. what happened?_  
spencer let out something that resembled a hollow laugh before deleting the message. whatever she wanted to know, he could tell her after the sun came up. he rolled over before shielding himself from the world with a duvet cover and falling back to sleep.   
-  
 _the sign was closer to his eyes than it had been before. he held up his hand and saw that his skin was tainted by the pink glow that came from the neon. frustrated at the fact that he couldn't read the sign, he walked away. before he got more than ten metres away, the lights all flicked on. spencer knew that the hallway seemed familiar but his attention was focused on the words. "run while you can," it read. all at once, spencer felt himself fill with sadness and anger. he couldn't figure out how four words made him feel so much._   
-  
a car alarm jerked spencer awake. he looked outside and saw it was still dark. his phone told him it'd been just an hour since aaron went to his apartment. while settling down again, spencer wondered why people bothered to have car alarms in the first place, especially in d.c.. the car thieves here were too good to set off any alarm so the only natural conclusion to be made about the usefulness of the car alarm was that it was completely obselete. it's not like anyone actually thought a car was being stolen when they heard it going off.   
spencer felt his phone buzz but ignored it, putting it in his back pocket and slipping on his shoes. he'd always thought that his city was beautiful at night and he'd not wandered outside after dark in a while.   
when he got to the apartment lobby, emily was stood with her arms crossed, almost as if she were waiting for him. spencer ignored her and kept his head down, only starting to run when he got out the door. he only realised it was raining when he stepped into a puddle. he'd probably ruined his shoe but he didn't care.   
a car horn sounded behind him but spencer didn't turn his head, still pumping his arms and legs as fast as he could, breathing in the rain like it was air.   
"spencer," came emily's voice from the car following him, "just get in the car."  
he kept running, shaking his head to get rid of the water in his hair. he didn't know if he was crying. it could have been the rain on his face but he felt so hot despite the biting cold of the night. he offered no reply to emily's plea.   
"spencer reid, i will arrest you if i have to," emily said, slightly louder this time.   
"oh yeah? what for?" spencer asked, stopping abruptly and turning at last toward emily and her car. his hands couldn't keep still. he knew it wasn't withdrawal yet. he just wanted to slash emily's tyres so she'd stop following him.   
"posession of illegal drugs as well as suspected public intoxication," emily replied, pulling over to park and running to spencer. she put a hand on his chest to stop him walking any further. "i'm not going to arrest you but you need to come with me, okay?" she said in a voice that was usually only reserved for children affected by the cases they flew out to solve.   
wordlessly, spencer got into the back seat of the car and rolled the window down so it was cracked. he leaned his head against the tinted glass and saw life pass him by. some people were trying to light cigarettes under their umbrellas, a young couple kissed in front of a skyscraper, and ever present were the lights. the lights blinked at him in a morse code message he couldn't be bothered to try and understand while emily drove away.


	3. withdrawals: day three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i'm afraid that if i speak i'll start shouting

spencer sat in the middle of his bedroom floor, an original hebrew bible open next to its english translation. emily had raised her eyebrows at the quite obviously antique books but had decided that she didn't want to know how much he'd spent on them. his eyes roamed over each page, picking out the nuances of hebrew and applying them to the teachings written in english. he was mostly fluent in hebrew but he could read his mother tongue faster, and he wanted to be as concentrated as possible. spencer's mind dipped in and out of each book, almost forgetting that emily was there watching him. he'd previously tried to get her to tell him exactly what aaron had told her to do and how to act but she'd remained tight lipped, even going so far to deny that aaron had had any part in her coming to live in his apartment until he got his shit together.    
emily'd driven him back to his apartment and stayed there with him, sleeping on the couch in his living room and only resting her head when she was sure he was asleep. it had only been two days but spencer could feel the tight tendrils of withdrawal gathering together and gradually choking him. the symptoms of anxiety and restlessness had already settled in, and the bags under his eyes had gotten worse, a feat he didn't know was possible. the walls of the apartment felt like they were closing in sometimes but he couldn't face going outside. it had only been two and a half days since his last dose of dilaudid but he could feel himself rapidly fraying around the edges.   
rubbing his eyes, spencer resolved to taking notes on his findings within the bibles as well as reading them. he knew he wouldn't misplace his thoughts but he needed something else to distract him from the nausea and the fact that his eyes didn't want to stop watering.   
"hey spencer," said emily from her place in a chair behind him, "do you want some food?"  
spencer contemplated eating solid food and found that even the thought of sustenance made him feel as if he was about to throw up. he could always give emily some money and ask her to get him a smoothie of some kind but thinking of the thick liquid sliding down his throat made his stomach lurch until he was running to his bathroom. he'd only made it just in time to throw up bile into the toilet, gripping the seat way too hard to be comfortable but not registering the slight dull pain. spencer sat with his back against the wall, feeling sweat under his clothes. _this feeling is disgusting_ , spencer thought, _just like me_.   
emily had listened to him retch and had decided to give him privacy until the coast seemed clear. stepping into the doorway, she extended a hand to help him up. spencer's eyes seemed to be halfway closed and he tripped over his own feet, falling onto her before starting to shake. she shook her head and looped one of his arms around her neck, half carrying him to the bedroom towards the temporary sanctuary of sleep.

  
**withdrawals: day three**   
_i can't shake this feeling that something's crawling on my skin. it's keeping me awake and making me feel sick. emily's here and she's denying that aaron sent her but i don't believe her for a second. just because i'm a drug addict doesn't mean i'm not a profiler. above almost everything else, i am a profiler._   
_i went to therapy briefly, some years back. she said that keeping journals helps. i have to do something to fill all these hours in a day because i need something to distract me from whatever the hell is wrong with me. i know that these are just withdrawal symptoms: tiredness, restlessness, hallucinations, nausea... i still can't help but wonder why all of this happened to me. i may not have become an addict by choice but i did choose to carry this on and not deal with it. prolonged use of any drug makes the symptoms worse but i guess the irrational part of my brain- the addict in me- thought that because i'm completely self aware that this would go away._   
_emily's worried about me. aaron hasn't visited me or even called. or maybe he has but emily just didn't let him see me._   
_i feel sick all the time but i've not eaten anything in almost two days so if i do throw up, it's just water and stomach acid. if i vomit early enough in the morning, my vitamins come up as well. i have to take them or i'll die of malnutrition. i may not be eating but i don't want to add deficiencies to my list of problems._   
_i've been praying a lot. emily sleeps on the small couch she dragged into my room to make sure i haven't stashed any d and that i'm not taking it. the sound of the couch scraping against the floor and walls almost made me shout at her because i already had a headache and because i'm angry all the time now. i haven't spoken since she brought me back to my place. i'm afraid that if i speak i'll start shouting._   
_i haven't written to my mother in a while. i hope she's okay. i know that she'd be able to tell immediately that there's something wrong with me just by my letters so i've stopped writing until i... get better. i still don't know how to phrase that. it's one thing to read about addiction happen to someone else but the shame you feel when you're going through it is crushing._   
_emily's worried about me. like i said before. she's trying to leave me alone as much as she can in good conscience. she's changed my clothes and put me into bed when i've passed out in my own vomit at least once. i can barely look at her now. as i said, i haven't spoken in a while. i feel like i don't even know how to anymore._


End file.
